Sunday, September 21, 2008

Systems Analysis

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)


She (a patient) simply saw me for what I was and told me off. I suffered from a disorder common in psychiatrists: furor therapeuticus. My furor therapeuticus may have been a sadistic madness, but it fit into the customs of the system and therefore the world was blind to it. I needed to believe my actions had done her good and was reassured on that point by others who shared my enthusiasm.”

Gordon Warme, M.D.
The Cure of Folly: A Psychiatrist’s Cautionary Tale

As I read these lines in this book, I thought to myself, “the world” is not blind to this need of psychiatrists; at least, not the world I live in with other of the psychiatrized, and with at least some of their friends and relatives. It is psychiatry that is blind to itself. Many on the receiving end of the ‘sadistic madness’ are fully aware of it. It is just that if we try to tell psychiatrists of what we are aware, the telling of it will get us more ‘help.’

We learn, early usually, that we are not to see or hear what they do not want us to see or hear for fear of offending these who are all certain that they know who we are ever so much better than WE do.

When we are on the receiving end of the system administrations, it is most common to receive a ‘correction’’ when any of ‘us’ intend to accuse anyone else (‘them’) of wrongdoing. “We can’t blame others” is an often repeated, indeed, even expected, complaint stopper.

Here is an opportunity for all those who subscribe to the ‘truth’ of this abstraction to back up your no doubt, well thought out, argument on this topic. In one hundred words or less, define for us please exactly who ‘we’ are, who must not blame others, and also who the ‘others’ are who can never be blamed.

To help all of you who can never 'blame others' focus a little bit, here is the dictionary definition of blame to help re-orient you to its actual meaning. Perhaps you could start by giving us an idea of the reason this word strikes such fear into you causing the predictable knee jerk response when you suspect it's possible use by anyone you have psychiatrized:

blame /[bleym] Pronunciation Key - blamed, blam·ing, noun –verb (used with object)

1. to hold responsible; find fault with; censure: I don't blame you for leaving him. 2. to place the responsibility for (a fault, error, etc.) (usually fol. by on): I blame the accident on her.

3. Informal. blast; damn (used as a mild curse): Blame the rotten luck. –noun
4. an act of attributing fault; censure; reproof: The judge said he found nothing to justify blame in the accident.
5. responsibility for anything deserving of censure: We must all share the blame for this deplorable condition. —Idiom
6. to blame, at fault; censurable: I am to blame for his lateness. blaspheme;

(n.) —Usage note Some speakers avoid blame on as informal (He blamed the fight on me), preferring blame alone (He blamed me) or blame for (He blamed me for it).
Since all three forms occur with equal frequency in educated usage, they may all be considered equally acceptable.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Since this instruction against blaming comes out of the mouths of mental health practitioners of all levels, as fast as a bullet out of a rifle, killing this line of thought before it takes hold, the instant it appears, you must already know exactly who, is whom. Some of us find this pretty amazing too; especially since you often have never even met us before. We don’t understand your ‘reasoning’ on this.

So explain it to us. We are all ears.





If you sign your name to your explanations, I will post them here by adding them onto this post. Of course, I will also do something here you are not accustomed to having done. I will respond to your ideas and treat you like an equal.

How weird and radical is that?




1 comment:

Patricia L said...

This is a message for BW:
Life is not an abstraction and you sound like someone who has been trained inside a cult. (or perhaps by psychiatry) Your messages are doublethink, doubletalk, out of touch with concrete reality and nonsensical. They are nonsensical because they are abstractions and not real life. They will not be published here so I would suggest you give up trying.
I know you won't blame' me for telling you this since you belíeve you are in total control of everything and therefore you must be causing me to tell you to get lost. In THAT assessment at least. you are right. Nice to be in agreement at last, isn't it?